For those just entering the Pokemon card collecting and investing world or for those who may have joined the fray during the massive boom in 2020, finding your footing in the current market may prove to be a difficult task.

Where do you start? How do you adjust? What trends should you be looking for? Which cards or items should you have your eye on?

As you might expect, the answer is not cut and dry. There are a plethora of avenues to explore when it comes to Pokemon cards in 2022, and you won’t always get the same results.

But there are methods you can employ to enhance your experience both as a collector and an investor.

Last time, we examined why the Pokemon card market was in its current state (if you haven’t read that piece already, follow that link and check it out before delving any deeper into this one). The hobby is no longer an insulated space that the average person would know nothing about. Things have exploded to the point where celebrities are now collecting these cards, and less experienced collectors and investors may feel like they are in limbo.

While no one has the magic bullet answer, there is one attribute that will typically bestow favor upon you: the ability to identify value.

Keep in mind that “value” isn’t necessarily what is going to make you the most money. Sometimes it is, but the general idea here is to get bang for your buck. When you do that consistently, you’ll end up better off in the long run.

Here are a few ways to assess value in the current Pokemon card market:

Try to avoid incredibly common cards

You would think this would be something that most people would know, but when you consider that so many were paying in the neighborhood of $1,000 for PSA 10 1st Edition Jungle Pikachus and Eevees in late 2020 and early 2021, it’s obvious that not everyone is on the same page.

I always like using that Pikachu card as the primary example because it is the poster child for a card that was exorbitantly overpriced and was absolutely due for a major dip.

That has occurred over the last year or so. Once a four-figure card in a PSA 10, that 1st Edition Jungle Pikachu is now flirting with the $200 mark. Even worse is the PSA 10 1st Edition Jungle Eevee, which can be had for right around $100 in today’s market.

So, what happened?

Well, like the first article I wrote about this stated, there was a perfect storm of events in 2020 and 2021 that caused the price of graded cards to go through the roof. Because PSA shut its doors in March 2021 due to an overwhelming backlog of submissions, people didn’t have access to grading. As a result, they turned to buying cards that were already graded, which artificially inflated the prices of cards like the aforementioned Pikachu and Eevee.

We also saw this for Base Set Unlimited common cards like Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur. Prior to their meteoric rise in late 2020, you could usually snap those cards up for around $40 (probably even around $20 in 2018). Then, during the boom, they were hitting prices near $500. That much growth in that short of a span is clearly not entirely organic, especially when those particular cards were so abundant (who didn’t have binder pages full of those cards back in 1999?).

These examples have all fallen tremendously in price since then. PSA has cleared most of its backlog, meaning most of the cards that were submitted in 2020 and 2021 have since been returned to the customers and listed on eBay for sale. I already mentioned the sharp decline of the Jungle Pikachu and Eevee, and those Base Set Unlimited commons are now all under $100.

Supply. Demand.

It may sound elementary, but based on what we witnessed the past couple of years, evidently, not everyone understands this point. Avoid very common cards with tons of graded copies if you really want the best value.

There are cards other than Wizards of the Coast

If you grew up with Pokemon cards, you most likely have a great reference point for the Wizards of the Coast (colloquially known as WOTC) era. These were the cards that lasted from Pokemon cards’ initial American release in 1999 through 2003 before the rights were sold to Nintendo.

During that time, we saw 15 sets released in English: Base Set, Jungle, Fossil, Base Set 2, Team Rocket, Gym Heroes, Gym Challenge, Neo Genesis, Neo Discovery, Neo Revelation, Neo Destiny, Legendary Collection, Expedition, Aquapolis and Skyridge.

Because those were the original sets with the original card template (although that template did change from Expedition through Skyridge), most people who grew up in the ’90s and early 2000s have an understandable attachment to them. But sometimes, they are attached to their own detriment.

Sure: everyone knows Base Set Charizard. It’s the most iconic card in the hobby, and I think we can all safely say that it will never be dethroned as Pokemon’s most recognizable card. But there is a life beyond that, and Wizards of the Coast era cards have reached a juncture where it is tough to find great deals (even if there are certainly more deals to be had now than in late 2020 and 2021).

So how about some alternatives?

The EX era has finally picked up steam over the last couple of years, but there is still value to be found there. The Diamond & Pearl era is still fleshing itself out, and Black & White and X & Y are essentially in their infancy stages (although they admittedly have seen some recent growth).

Now I will caution that the most modern sets (namely Sun and Moon and Sword and Shield) have a whole lot of stock available, meaning the market is rather saturated with those products. At least on the English side of the hobby (more on that in a bit). So don’t think you’re going to get rich overnight off buying Elite Trainer Boxes.

Regardless, it won’t harm you to expand your collection outside of Wizards of the Coast cards. A little variety never hurt anyone.

Don’t be afraid of Japanese cards

In my humble opinion, the most value right now is found in the Japanese market.

We will delve a whole lot deeper into the Japanese market vs. the English market in a future piece, but to try and keep things short for now, Japanese cards typically have more to offer than their English counterparts.

Why? Well, first of all, there is a whole lot of exclusive art on the Japanese side that never quite makes its way to America. I’m mainly talking promos, but there are even some differences in set cards. For example, on the English side, Neo Discovery does not have the Beedrill and Butterfree holos that Japan has. Those cards are non-holo rares in English. Then, in Neo Revelation, the Japanese variant has Aerodactyl, Kingdra and Starmie all in holo form. They are all non-holo in English.

Second, Japanese prices are, for the most part, better. This isn’t always the case, but more often than not, the prices of Japanese set cards is cheaper than in English. The same applies for booster boxes. So you’re getting the same art for a cheaper price (especially right now with the Japanese yen being so much weaker than the American dollar). Yes, the language in the text is different, but if all you really care about is the art, so what? I would even argue that the borders on Japanese cards are more tasteful than that of English cards.

Finally, Japanese print quality is generally superior to English. This isn’t true 100 percent of the time, but the exception is not the rule. So if you’re picking up some raw mint Japanese cards, they will usually stand a better chance of attaining a higher grade at PSA (or whatever grading company you choose) than the English versions. This has been a consistent factor dating all the way back to the ’90s when the cards were first released.

You would be surprised how quickly you might become hooked on Japanese cards when you start buying them. And let’s be honest: Pokemon is a Japanese franchise, so everything that comes to America has already been digested in Japan. And again, there are some Japanese cards that never make their way to a North American printing facility (or British or Australian or whatever) because they are never redesigned with English text. The incessantly popular Red’s Pikachu promo is a perfect example of this. So are the Yokohama Pikachu promos, of which we saw several (one example can be found here).

What you grew up with is cool and all, but you’re really missing out if you refuse to at least test the Japanese market at some point, both as a collector and an investor.